Immigration Fosters Surge In Subway Use

By GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE

Published: February 11, 1997

Despite a 25-cent fare increase, subway ridership in New York City soared last year to its highest level since the early 1970's, as the immigrant surge that has reinvigorated neighborhoods throughout the city has rippled over to the transit system.

The ridership statistics provide a snapshot of how the new immigration is having its scattershot impact on the city neighborhoods. In Queens, where the already crowded No. 7 line traverses immigrant communities like Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona, ridership has risen 20 percent over the first half of the decade. Similar increases were seen along the A and the C lines serving Washington Heights, where thousands of Dominicans have settled and along the N and R trains, which new arrivals from China, Mexico and Russia use to get to their homes in neighborhoods like Sunset Park.

While the increases can be partly explained by safer and cleaner cars, along with the city's booming tourist trade, the patterns of the increases -- with the largest jumps in ridership along lines that go to immigrant neighborhoods -- largely explains why ridership rose from less than 1 billion in 1992 to 1.1 billion last year, transit officials said.

''The spurt in immigration has really been behind this increase,'' said Harvey Poris, the Transit Authority's budget director. ''It's a relatively new phenomenon.''

The jump in ridership has worsened already dense crowding on lines like the No. 7, but transit officials say they have no immediate plans to alter service, since such population trends tend to be fluid. At the same time, the increase in ridership has produced an unexpected $24 million windfall in fare revenue for a system struggling with cutbacks in government subsidies.

The last time that officials could directly link ridership increases to the surge of new immigrants was in the 1920's, as the last great immigrant era ended in New York City, Mr. Poris said.

Despite the increase in subway ridership, bus ridership continued its 25-year decline, dropping 5.2 percent to 426 million passengers in 1995. In part this is due to the continuing popularity of illegal vans, which not coincidentally have sprung up as a major transportation alternative in many immigrant neighborhoods.

Ridership on the subways began a long decline in 1970, when there were 1.3 billion riders a year as an exodus to the suburbs was followed by service cuts to the system that lowered the system's performance. Ridership figures leveled off at a billion a year through the 1980's, dipping to 995 million in 1991. But from then on, ridership began to accelerate, something transit officials initially attributed to the cleaner cars and improved performance of the trains after a large-scale rebuilding program.

Historically, ridership patterns have often reflected the strength of the city's economy; the more jobs available, the more people ride the subways to get to work. When the economy declines, ridership decreases. Indeed, in 1990, when New York and the rest of the country were in a recession, ridership decreased by nearly 4 percent.

But from 1992 to 1995, employment rose only 1 percent while subway ridership jumped 9.7 percent, with the biggest increases on weekends.

In a 1995 study, the Transit Authority found that the growth in immigration was directly responsible for most of the increase in subway ridership between 1990 to 1994. For example, in the Ozone Park and Woodhaven sections of Queens, subway ridership increased by 20 percent. During the same period, statistics from the city's Planning Department showed that while the population of those neighborhoods showed an increase of only 1.7 percent, school enrollment -- considered a more accurate barometer of immigration trends -- increased 23 percent.

Besides the No. 7 line that goes through the heart of Queens, other Brooklyn and Queens lines that saw big increases in ridership were the the J and A lines, particularly the stops along those lines in Woodhaven, a working-class area that has seen a surge in immigrants. Another line that saw large ridership increases were the Brooklyn portions of the N line, which goes through the new Chinese enclave in Sunset Park and goes on to Brighton Beach, a magnet for Russian immigrants.

So far, officials said that the effects of the increase in ridership have been muted because it has stretched over a 24-hour period, so crowding has not been particularly noticeable at many stations.

Still, rider advocacy groups said that the Transit Authority needs to better address the needs of immigrants. For example, there are not enough signs in Spanish, Russian and Chinese at stations where the majority of the riders speak these languages, the advocates said, which they regard as vital if transit officials want keep the immigrants as riders.

''It's definitely an English-first crew,'' said Joseph G. Rappaport, coordinator of the Straphangers Campaign, a riders advocacy group. ''If you go to other international cities, you'll likely find signs in three to four different languages. Here in New York signs are inadequate in one language.''

Officials believe they can reverse the decline in bus ridership with the elimination of two-fare zones in July, when riders will be able to transfer from buses to subways for free. Officials plan to add 205 new buses to the fleet of 3,600 buses.

Graph: ''A CLOSER LOOK: Subway Ridership Is Up'' tracks number of subway riders, from 1972 through 1996. Graph also shows sites of stations with large increases in ridership from 1990 to 1994 that were attributed to a rise in immigration. (Sources: New York City Transit $(ridership$); Department of City Planning $(immigration$)) (pg. B3)